I think that was he said has been thought and intuitevly known by many, many people in the past. Having a lead designer (even if he's from a different genre) come and say it more or less validate it. The problem for Blizzard is that is too late, and that the best solutions they can do at this point is patch the problem, like with the flex raids. They can't really put the genie back in the bottle. The instant Wotlk broke in two difficulties the raid content, they were lost. Entitlement and "but I used to" were inflicted upon WoW. Thanks, worst expansion ever.

Eh, he makes a fair point but I still hate TBC simply because of attunements and pretty much anything that hindered alt playing. I don't think Raids should be exclusive, but I don't think we should have stuff nerfed because not-so-good players now have access. LFR should be to see content, not to gear alts (and mains with shit luck).

He is correct insofar as BC - Wrath mentalities. The mentality changed after Wrath - Cataclysm, as seen by the player arguing with Morello and the fact that "over-time reward structures" (dailies, reputations) have fallen from grace (as evidenced by these forums for Mists).

How many people do you see on this forum with signatures both saying LFR is killing WoW, and saying LFR is saving WoW?

I agree with him - the "everyone must see everything" mentality has driven WoW downward.

"In today’s America, conservatives who actually want to conserve are as rare as liberals who actually want to liberate. The once-significant language of an earlier era has had the meaning sucked right out of it, the better to serve as camouflage for a kleptocratic feeding frenzy in which both establishment parties participate with equal abandon" (Taking a break from the criminal, incompetentliars at the NSA, to bring you the above political observation, from The Archdruid Report.)

I quite agree. The illusion of exclusivity and "neverending content" that Average Joe will never see is a core and essential part of the game. It gives people a goal to reach, impossible or otherwise.

as it stands, you can see everything every raid has to offer with ease - "hard modes" are just the same thing for a more dedicated crowd. It's not the same. People get bored. People unsub. People think back to better times with better content (better because they didn't get to wear it out) and lose the inclination to keep playing.

Like it or not, on some primal level, people WANT a goal they can't reach. They WANT content they'll only ever be able to see by looking up videos and getting involved in the community. It vindicates their investment. And if they DO ever reach it, it's an actual accomplishment instead of just the same thing everyone else in the game is doing.

Game design depends a lot on what philosophy you have about it when you start and how that philosophy evolves over time as the game changes and the players who play the game change.

There is no one 'right' way to design a game. You design to reach an end goal. In the end it's still about business: If you believe that inclusion will help your business then you will be inclusive; otherwise you may not. Personally I believe the larger problem with WoW--besides the sheer age of the game--is that as the design philosophy changes to meet whatever goals the company has for the game, the transitions from one thing to another are terrible-to-nonexistent.

People talk as if WoW is some sort of failure. It clearly isn't. It makes tons of money for its corporate parent and has millions of players after 8+ years. It has done and continues to do things that no other game has been able to accomplish. It is and continues to be a success by anyone's standards.

I like quite a bit of what Morello says but whether or not it would make the game more or less successful is an open question. He's overseeing a game that is all about PVP, no raids and no subscriptions. The point being that whatever your game design philosophy actually is professional designers have to consider the market they're designing for.

It's all about hitting the sweet spots and that's the hardest thing there is in any form of entertainment media that includes millions of participants.

Well that's his perspective and that drives the philosophy behind his game, which is why I'm glad there are many games out there today appealing to different audiences. TBC was a sweetspot for me too, but I can never say this enough: I wouldn't go back. If WoW were still TBC, I simply wouldn't be playing. TBC was many years ago, all of us who played then are years older now, and for the most part the game has changed to reflect very well how its players have changed.

Speaking of long-term engagement, I've been playing since January of 2006, more than seven years. Many players have been playing even longer than that. So clearly the WoW teams design philosophy vis-a-vis long term engagement isn't wrong (at least not completely), it's just different, and different games will appeal to different players.

I must say its refreshing to see someone look at this entire thing the same way i do

Hes quite right in pointing out the value of exclusive content versus content for all. Its good to see an important game designer like himself thinks Blizzard made a mistake with their direction change, its the same way i look at it.

I would say not everything in BC is on a sweet spot. The best spot for raiding imo is around the time of Ulduar where normal mode was reasonably challenging and HM was hard. Depsite having better raids overall but I think MoP have too many difficulty levels.

It's really about game design philosophy. Good designers will design for the game they're working on. That doesn't mean they don't have informed opinions and ideas about how game genres other than their own should be designed. The mild joke here is that if this designer were brought in to replace Kosak for some reason, it wouldn't likely change the game much. Designers report to superiors and that's where the rubber hits the road on what actually happens. If inclusion is the rule at Blizzard, then inclusion it will be.

So ur saying that game designers have only ever worked on one game... or maybe one one type of game in their careers?

Yeah cos everyone out there in the workplace right now has only ever had one job in their lifetime right...

Just cos a Car designer is currently employed to make sports cars doesnt mean he would be clueless at designing a executive saloon.

I don't know Scott's career, but this whole thread is based on "here's a designer for a popular game and here's what he thinks about Blizzard's design for WoW". Except he's commenting on the one element in WoW that's completely missing in LoL.

I mean his view is that Blizzard would have had more success if they had kept Raiding more exclusive like it was in TBC, right? What is this based off of? Certainly not his work with LoL which doesn't have exclusive PvE content.

Hey, maybe the guy who designs engines is also great as designing the auto navi/computer systems. But unless you can show me when he's designed a great navi/computer system in the past, I'm not sure why I would give that much weight to his views on what the navi/computers designers should have done.

I agree completely. It's great to theorize on what would make the game better, but until you try it, you don't really know. He can say his philosophy all he wants, but we have no way of knowing if he could make it work until he tries. Everyone thinks they're an expert (and I will give in some that since he is a game designer, he does have more expertise than the average forum star), but he's not the lead on a game where he can try his philosophy in practice, so it's just a guess as to whether it would work.

While I appreciate his thoughts, this is simply the opinion of an outsider. LoL and WoW are apples and oranges. Being a game designer himself does not really validate his opinions any more or less, other than being appreciative of the scope of work and challenges of other lead game designers.

Balancing for a MOBA is so much different than balancing a MMORPG for dungeons, raids, leveling, PVP across all kinds of scenarios and environments. In LoL you have basically one kind of map. Sure there are hundreds of heroes, but they all boil down to the same roles they are made to perform, whether it's ranged AD, support, tank, etc.